Hi Chris

Your son is indeed thinking. While many Americans are looking forward to and working towards replacing Mr. Trump, few are questioning why this fellow got elected in the first place. I’m a bit flummoxed on this one.

I am putting a new website together. Most of it is functional. Tell your son to get on my email list. Go to http://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/tdg.php, then to SOCIAL MEDIA. He can be part of history!

While your son is cynical, political parties actually have limited resources. And they have designed political structures to work best with those limited resources. Let me explain.

In my part of the world (Southeast Alberta), my provincial constituency has 40,000 residents. These residents are solid behind the Conservative Party. There is a joke that the Conservatives could nominate a fencepost, and that fencepost would still win the election.

The Conservative Party has a “constituency association” to manage affairs of the Party in this constituency. Here are some functions of that association:

1. Hold periodic party meetings to keep up the profile.
2. Keep experienced election workers involved in politics in between elections, often called “election readiness.”
3. Keep a lawful fund available for the election.
4. If there is an incumbent representative from the Conservative Party, make sure that representative is doing the right things to stay elected (like attend lots of meetings and events).
5. If the incumbent is not doing a good job, look for a replacement.
6. Conduct the local party election to produce a candidate. Try to ensure this internal election is fair.
7. And there are a few more things to do, but I think you get the drift. .

This constituency association requires about 25 people to operate properly between elections. That is 25 loyal party workers spread over a population of 40,000.

As well, there are often little favors granted to such workers if they spend a few years serving the party at that level.

So let’s reduce the 40,000 constituency to 200 neighborhoods of about 200 neighbors each. Or better said: “TDG Size”.

1. The party will not find 25 loyal party workers who have the skills to maintain party functioning between elections in each neighborhood. Sorry, the people are just not that political! And never will be!
2. The party will not be able to find credible candidates in all 200 neighborhoods. If it tries to put up fenceposts (or better said, someone who really should not be public office) as its candidates, the neighbors will know the party candidate is a fencepost and is not someone they want to send into governance. They will vote for someone else.

The much smaller size the TDG electoral districts will break the party structure. There is no way they can manipulate the electoral process. The parties just do not have the resources to invest into smaller and many more electoral districts and remain credible to the public.

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Your son seems to be talking about the gentrification of popular locations in American cities. I too see that as a problem because these areas require low-wage workers to remain viable for the rich people. But if these low wage earners are coming from far away to work, that commute is keeping them poor. Definitely not a great social structure. It is better to have a mixed income housing in any area.

But with the TDG, TDG neighborhoods will be sending one of their own people into governance. So there will be a lot of “working poor” in government, which is really going to change the dynamic of how decisions get made.

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The TDG needs only 1% of the population to start things off. It doesn’t matter if this 1% is young or old, rich or poor, religious or not.

And I figure an early TDG builder will only need about 10 hours a month of volunteer time .